He told a rally in the town of Charleville-Mezieres: "This is a region that put its faith in Nicolas Sarkozy, who came here making speeches on industry, jobs, workers. Everybody can see the scale of the disappointment.

Mr Hollande has been stressing France's economic woes

"Now, it's the left's turn to govern the country," he added.

As well as Mr Hollande and Mr Sarkozy, far-right candidate Marine Le Pen, radical leftist Jean-Luc Melenchon and centrist Francois Bayrou are among the front-runners.

Economic focus

Campaigning has focused on the economy, with Mr Sarkozy boasting of good economic growth in 2011, despite unemployment at 10%.

Both leading candidates have promised to balance the budget, but Mr Hollande has emphasised growth rather than austerity.

Mr Hollande told Europe 1 radio earlier on Friday that the country's budget woes were the result of five years of Mr Sarkozy's policies, and called for concerted European action to revive growth.

"The important thing is to put our public finances in order," he said.

"They've been turned completely upside down these past years due to irresponsible fiscal policy and the crisis."

He called for the European Central Bank (ECB) to take a radically different role by lending directly to troubled eurozone states rather than to banks, and by keeping interest rates low.

The ECB is barred by law from purchasing government debt directly - the "no bailout clause" - and some economists argue that such a move would risk easing the pressure for governments to balance their budgets.

Also on Friday morning, Mr Sarkozy said he had helped steer the eurozone through the worst of the debt crisis, making him the safest pair of hands.

"The risk of the euro imploding doesn't exist any more," he told RTL radio.

"We can't afford any mistakes. The minute we ease up on cutting spending, reducing the deficit, reducing the debt, France will share the fate of Spain."

By law, election campaigning had to end at midnight local time (22:00 GMT) on Friday.